France denounced "with the utmost firmness" the rocket launch of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), calling it "a senseless provocation," the French presidential office said Sunday in a statement.

The DPRK launch of a long-range rocket was "a new flagrant violation of the UN Security Council's resolutions," it said, urging the international community to take swift and decisive action.

Earlier on Sunday, the DPRK fired an Earth-observation satellite, which is widely seen as a test of ballistic missile technology.

The DPRK is banned under UN Security Council resolutions from testing a rocket by use of ballistic missile technology and staging a nuclear test.

The rocket launch came a few weeks after the DPRK conducted what it said was its first H-bomb test on Jan. 6. It was the fourth in a series of nuclear detonations following tests in 2006, 2009 and 2013. Endi

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